Q&A with Designer/Blogger Terri Potratz

January 22, 2009.

Each week, Scout poses 60 questions to a local who has made life in BC that much more interesting. They pick and choose which ones they’d prefer to answer, with a minimum response rate of 20. A Rorschach test, for sure…

Terri Potratz is the founder and editor of The Conveyor Belt: A Fashion and Lifestyle Journal and the Style Editor for NowPublic.com. She has also written freelance for publications such as Infamous Magazine, ION Magazine, and Dose.ca. In the fall of 2007 Terri launched Larry Designs, a unique knitwear collection which emphasizes the importance of sourcing locally: raw alpaca fibre from the BC interior is naturally spun into bulky wool, then crafted into oversized scarves and neckwarmers. “larry.” has appeared on actress Gabrielle Miller in Alive Magazine, within the pages of The Georgia Straight Style Magazine, ION and Shared-Vision, and most recently on the walls of Vancouver’s grace-gallery.

Scout Q&A

Three things about your neighbourhood that make you want to live there: Sunrise Hastings. I have a great studio, about equal distance between Commercial Drive and Gastown, and I live right next door to storage facilities and the train tracks. What more could you ask for?

The thing that you eat that is bad for you that you will never stop eating: French Fries!!

Default drink of choice: Coffee in the morning, water in the afternoon, wine in the evening.

Sexiest fashion item for the opposite sex: This is an impossible question. One thing?! A sharp jacket. Clean shoes. Casual and comfortable clothes. Tattoos, but not lame ones. Favourite wine varietal: Heavy and red. Not picky. The person you can imitate: My brothers. One thing you’d like to change about Vancouver: Free Wi-Fi for everyone! Bartender who could sell you anything: My old boss at the Mint in Victoria Book you’re reading: The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape

Biggest fear: Tripping and falling on my face.

Cliché that you use too often: I avoid clichés like the plague [ed note: I read that twice before getting it].

Under what circumstances would you join the army: As a spy.

Your paternal grandfather’s personal story: He was a firefighter captain.

Best bar stool in the city: Narrow Lounge. Alibi Room.

What are you proud of: Showing my “larry.” scarves at grace-gallery. First gallery show ever.

The thing that makes you the angriest: People who butt into line. Littering. The silent treatment. Bullies.

Saddest thing about Vancouver: DTES. Littering.

Most challenging aspect of blogging: Consistency.

Food your mom makes better than anyone: Steamed vegetables. Just kidding! My mom doesn’t cook a whole lot. She makes a good apple pie though. And one time she made a pumpkin pie and the cracks on the top were in the shape of a pi symbol. It was spooky. A Pi pie.

Musical instrument you long to play: Harmonica.

Sport you gave up: Soccer

The game you’re best at: Cribbage (and Scrabble).

Mac or PC: Mac.

Favourite local designer: Dace

The number of fist fights you’ve been in: One, in grade 5. Though, some meathead punched me in the nose by accident last year, but I was the bigger person and let him go without exacting any revenge.

The scariest situation you’ve ever been in: Driving back to Vancouver on the Sea to Sky, caught in a complete white-out situation with no snow tires in the middle of return Whistler Film Festival traffic. Took us 9 hours. In the dark. I actually called my mother for one last chat “just in case.” Three things of no value that you will keep until you die: My old dog’s blanket, old letters and diaries, and photographs.

Local person you admire most: All of my friends and colleagues. I have some pretty special people around me that inspire each and every day.

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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was .